Baconfest Chicago is proud to welcome aboard our friends from sunny California and now the South Side, Lagunitas Brewing Company.

They’ll be with us on April 25th and 26th pouring a variety of seasonal flavors for you thirsty bacon-chomping masses. What’s more, they’re helping us to transform April into Bacon Month by supplying tasty beer for our Whole Foods Market Bacon Master Classes on April 5 and April 16.

To all you beer drinkers out there, “you’re welcome!”

About Lagunitas Brewing Company:

From points distant and beyond we all converged on Petaluma in 1993 and ’94 with an unenunciated desire to be more than we were before. The core of Lagunitas came from Chicago, St Louis, Memphis, Walker Creek, and the highlands of Quincy.

The Chicago contingent initiated the brewing and the gravitational effect of its suchness did the rest. We all loved the beer but the mission was larger than the ordinary joy of a hoppy-sweet quaff. It was driven unseen by an urge to communicate with people, to find our diasporidic tribe, and to connect with other souls adrift on a culture that had lost its center and spun its inhabitants to the four winds to wander lost and bereft with a longing to re-enter the light. Beer, we have learned, has always been a good lubricant for social intercourse!

The Lagunitas Brewing Co. was not so much an act of ordinary ‘foundling’ as it was willed into being by the unspoken desire of supportive beer-lovers in Northern California after which they continued to nurture their creation and urged us forward to fulfill the unifying needs of that same beer-loving diaspora from coast to coast and beyond. It is good to have friends!

Baconfest Chicago is a nationally renowned, locally beloved festival dedicated to America’s favorite cured meat: bacon! At Baconfest, Chicago’s best chefs concoct and serve brilliant bacon dishes to thousands of passionate bacon lovers. Liquor sponsors provide cocktails, beer and wine designed to complement a bacon meal. Bacontrepreneurs and bacon-friendly brands exhibit their wares and connect with our bacon community. A panel of judges bestows the Golden Rasher awards on chefs and guests for achievement in the bacon arts. It is a raucous, rockin’ good time for everybody involved.